Yesterday, I got to cross off one item on my 30 Before 30 list: the 5 day juice cleanse.

I started this because i thought there was a chance it might help my headaches/migraines. It didn’t. But it was an interesting exercise in self-control and patience.

We bought a juicer a few weeks ago in order to make this process a little cheaper. Then we modeled our juices on the juices from Blueprint Cleanse (at first). That meant that we had six 16 ounce juices a day. They were to be drunk in a specific order. They were also supposed to be drunk fresh. Between the juices we were supposed to drink 12+ oz. of water. I almost just moved into the bathroom to live.

Here’s a rundown with pictures.

Our juicer in the juicing corner. It’s a Hurom Slow Juicer, recommended by Bon Appetit. It was expensive, but it will juice almost anything. Nuts, beans, greens, etc.

This is the fridge on Saturday morning, day 3 of the fast.

This is our take from the farmer’s market for juicing. apples, kale, lettuce, parsley, beets, and strawberries.

Fridge post market. Amazingly almost all of this was gone by this morning (the end of the juice cleanse).

The first and third juices of the day are green: kale, lettuce, spinach, parsley, celery, cucumber, lemon, and apple. Here are the ingredients for 4 16 oz portions.

Then we juice all of it. The celery is chopped in a food processor because otherwise it clogs the machine. We also had to alternate greens and apples to ensure the machine wasn’t clogged.

This is what is leftover…

The juice!

Second juice of the day is pineapple-apple-mint. We used peppermint. Unfortunately the pineapple clogs the machine. Half a pineapple and a lot of apples are what we used.

Juicing the pineapple and apple.

Here’s the drink. The foam is due to the machine being clogged.

After the second green, we make spicy lemonade. Below Ben is juicing lemons. Then we mix the juice with water, agave syrup, and cayenne pepper. It can make your brain explode.

Post spicy lemonade is red juice. Gag. Apples, beets, lemon, ginger, and carrots. Only it was gross so I added strawberries.

Red juice. So gross. And pulpy. And ick.

The final drink of the day is nut milk. Ben likes cashews and I like almonds, hence the difference. We juiced dates with them so that we didn’t have to add any agave syrup. One day we added cinnamon and most days we added vanilla. But in order to juice the nuts, we had to soften them. So we soaked them for 4+ hours.